Estonia shares e-governance experience at UN

Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid attended a high-level event on the sidelines of the 73rd UN General Assembly, where Estonia and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) launched their cooperation project to support the development of e-governance, informs LETA/BNS.

Kersti Kaljulaid. Photo: twitter.com.

The
cooperation project is a major initiative to support the digital transformation
of UNDP and developing countries. The aim of the project is to share Estonia's
e-governance expertise with nearly 170 countries and territories. The Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of Estonia will provide the seed funding of 102,000 to launch
the project, spokespeople for the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

"Too
often digitalization within countries happens in isolation, effectively meaning
that everybody is inventing the wheel. It makes a lot of sense to bring
the best practices and the best experts together in one project that has the
ability to impact many countries," Kaljulaid said of the reasons why
Estonia decided to join forces with UNDP.

UNDP is the
UN's global development network working in more than 170 countries. The organisation
aims to reduce poverty in developing countries and support states in their
development agendas and strategies and in using money more efficiently. UNDP
focuses on the development of democracy, crisis prevention, poverty reduction,
environmental sustainability and HIV/AIDS prevention.

The
e-governance project will be implemented by UNDP and Estonia's E-governance
Academy and the seed funding of 102,000 euros is allocated from the foreign
ministry's development and humanitarian aid fund.

EU economy’s future: slow but positive growthGrowth in all EU states will continue in 2019-20, though at a slower pace than before. The largest EU’s economies will grow at around 1,5-1,7%, mostly in Poland, Spain and Holland. The Baltic States’ growth will continue to be on the positive trend.